JARED HUFFMAN Rep
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SEE MAIN
SEE FREEDOM 250
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2X? AN 2026
The Trump administration is illegally using the Social Security email list to spew political propaganda. That email list likely includes everyone with an online Social Security account—over 100 million people, both current and future Social Security beneficiaries. The purpose of the list is for the government to share important information about Social Security benefits.
On July 2, the Trump administration sent an email from Commissioner Frank Bisignano, ostensibly to mark America’s 250th birthday. The email, like a similar one sent a year ago, is a fully political document.
Bisignano begins by bragging about President Donald Trump’s tax bill without mentioning:
- Trump’s bill cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which is causing hospitals around the country to close—a disaster for seniors, especially those living in rural areas.
- Trump’s bill gives massive tax cuts to the ultra wealthy, including trillionaire Elon Musk.
- Trump’s bill does not end taxes on Social Security benefits, but does weaken Social Security’s long-term finances.
Bisignano then goes on to tout allegedly improved customer service. Widespread media reports show that customer service has massively deteriorated since Musk’s DOGE pushed out more than 8,000 of Social Security’s most experienced, knowledgeable workers. These reports include first-person stories where even highly educated people with Social Security expertise have faced months-long nightmares to resolve simple errors that cut themselves or their family members off from benefits.
Shortly after Bisignano was confirmed last year, Social Security removed longstanding customer service metrics from its website. Since then, Bisignano has cherry-picked his own metrics and used them to mislead.
Bisignano moved many of the remaining Social Security office workers to answering phones, while other essential work piles up. Then, he brags about shorter waits on the phone. What he doesn’t mention is that if you hang up in frustration, or talk to someone who can’t help you because they aren’t adequately trained, it still counts toward a short wait on the phone. The only metric that really matters is if people are getting the help they need. On that count, Bisignano is failing miserably.
The situation is particularly dire for people who need help in person. The country is dotted with Social Security “ghost offices” that aren’t officially closed (because that’s bad publicity for Trump and Bisignano) but have only a skeleton crew of workers remaining. These offices can’t meaningfully serve the community, and people are losing their hard-earned benefits as a result.
The same week that Bisignano sent out his political propaganda email, the Social Security Administration announced that the Freedom 250 logo will appear on the Social Security Cards of all babies born for the rest of 2026.
Freedom 250 is a semi-private, partisan entity. Trump and his allies are using it to turn the celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary into profit for themselves. Freedom 250 has a history of harvesting data, and employs former DOGE operatives. Bisignano claims that the Social Security Administration isn’t paying Freedom 250 a licensing fee, or sharing data with it. But we already know that Bisignano lies as easily as he breathes.
Trump’s hijacking of Social Security is just the latest example of his corruption. Like the reflecting pool, the Kennedy Center, and the White House, Social Security is a sacred American institution that Trump is abusing for his own financial and political gain.
Social Security is a nonpartisan program, with overwhelming support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. By using it for political purposes, Trump and Bisignano are betraying the American people.
Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, the convening organization of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition -- a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans.
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REF 1 WAPO
Donors were misled by Trump-backed Freedom 250, House Democrats allege
The lawmakers’ report alleges that Trump allies worked to divert funds away from America250, a bipartisan effort to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial. Freedom 250 denies the allegations.
July 2, 2026
President Donald Trump wraps up his speech at the opening of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall on June 24. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
By Ben Binday
and
Some donors who intended to give money to a bipartisan effort to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary were, instead, steered to a White House-backed initiative under false pretenses, House Democrats allege in a report released Thursday morning, citing whistleblower interviews and newly obtained documents.
The donors meant to give money to America250, a congressionally chartered initiative to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. They instead were given routing and account numbers that directed their funds to Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump established last year to organize anniversary events, the report says.
The report does not identify the donors. In interviews, Democrats said they needed to protect the identity of whistleblowers who worked with the panel. But they said their report — which includes other allegations of Freedom 250 officials and allies explicitly steering money away from America250 and toward projects shaped by Trump — shows how the president transformed a bipartisan celebration of the nation’s anniversary into an initiative that benefited him and his allies.
“I’m a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California), who oversaw the report as the committee’s top Democrat. “But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) speaks May 14 at the site of Trump’s proposed triumphal arch to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary in Arlington, Virginia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The White House referred questions to Freedom 250, which denied that donors had been misled by its fundraising activities, said it was “unequivocally false” that Freedom 250’s routing and account numbers were given in lieu of America250’s, and criticized Democrats for the timing of their report.
“This so-called ‘report’ is nothing more than a partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division than celebrate America’s 250th birthday alongside the rest of the country,” Freedom 250 spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.
Alvarez also criticized America250, saying that the bipartisan organization — which Congress established in 2016 — “had nothing to show” for its 10 years of planning and spending.
“Freedom 250 was created because the American people deserved better,” Alvarez said.
America250 declined to comment on the specific allegations in Democrats’ report.
“America250 will continue to focus on the values-based programming approved by our bipartisan Commission at the local, state, national and international levels, including once-in-a-lifetime celebratory moments during the 4th of July weekend,” Rosie Rios, who chairs America250, said in a statement. “We are supportive of the many other organizations planning events for the 250th at the federal, state and local level, so all Americans have ample opportunities to join in the celebration.”
Trump has extolled Freedom 250 in public remarks, saying that the initiative has organized multiple special events. The public-private partnership, which the White House launched in December, has overseen a flurry of high-profile announcements, including some from the Oval Office. Its branding has also been applied to events organized by IndyCar, the UFC and other groups in partnership with the Trump administration.
“We’ll have a Freedom 250 Grand Prix right here in Washington around the Capitol,” the president said last week in remarks kicking off the Great American State Fair on the National Mall — another Freedom 250-backed event.
People use American flag posters to shield themselves from the sun ahead of Trump’s speech at the opening of the Great American State Fair. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)
The Trump-backed initiative has overtaken some efforts led by America250, which is directed by a bipartisan board created by Congress a decade ago.
America250 originally applied for and received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for so-called Freedom Trucks, mobile museums inspired by the American Freedom Train that crisscrossed the country from 1975-1976. The institute is a federal agency that provides financial support for museums and libraries.
Officials have said the grant was later voluntarily transferred to Freedom 250, which is now operating Freedom Trucks that provide a sanitized version of the nation’s founding, according to administration critics.
PRAGER?
America250 officials have said they reoriented their initiative to organize events outside Washington, while Freedom 250 focuses on events in the nation’s capital. But the dueling organizations and approaches have confused some corporate leaders and lawmakers, and tensions between the groups have grown, The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
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The Democratic lawmakers’ report offers further examples of how the two groups have come into conflict.
Some donors and sponsors interested in donating to America250 were told by the Trump administration that they lacked a “green light” to do so, according to the Democrats. The report also claims that administration officials pressured donors to redirect donations from the bipartisan effort to Freedom 250, with the Trump-backed group conducting outreach to America250 sponsors with donation requests.
Some corporate executives did not understand the difference between the two organizations and were confused by this process, the report says.
Freedom 250 officials also worked to deprive America250 of money, the Democrats charge, citing new examples of Trump allies pressuring donors to reallocate funds away from the bipartisan initiative. They also allege that Trump allies worked to shift public financial support away from America250, including $75 million of congressionally allocated funds that America250 leaders were expecting to receive. The remaining funds are likely to be kept by the White House, the report says.
The reduced funding posed challenges for America250 to execute planned programming, according to the report, including grants, educational initiatives, and volunteer programs. Redirected federal funding created “significant headwinds” for this programming, the Democrats said, though the group still sought to execute all planned events through additional private fundraising.
The Freedom 250 Ferris Wheel and the U.S. Capitol are seen June 26 during the fair. (Jen Golbeck/AP)
Though America250 is still organizing anniversary celebrations in large cities across the country, its programming has been overshadowed by that of Freedom 250. The Trump-backed group helped promote last month’s UFC fight on the White House lawn, helped organize this week’s opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota and is coordinating a Trump rally and fireworks show scheduled for the evening of Independence Day.
Huffman said that if Democrats retake the House this fall — and obtain the power to issue subpoenas — they will open broader investigations into Freedom 250.
“If and when we have more tools at our disposal to do investigation and oversight, perhaps in the next Congress you will see a lot more information on this, I’m sure,” he said.
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REF 2
Ranking Member Huffman Releases Report on How Trump Hijacked America's 250th Birthday to Enrich Himself, Sell Access, and Harvest Americans' Data
Whistleblower accounts and internal documents reveal how the White House captured a beloved national charity, deceived donors out of their money, and sold access to the President
July 02, 2026
Washington, D.C. – Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) released a new 55-page report following months of investigative work by Committee Democrats exposing how Donald Trump hijacked what was supposed to be a unifying, non-political celebration of our country's 250th birthday and made it all about him – his vanity projects, his political and religious agenda, his business ventures, and his cronies who gorged on public funds under cover of a shadow corporation shielded from public scrutiny.
The report, "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday," traces how the machinery Congress built for a national commemoration that would be above politics was commandeered, over a period of months, into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President's ego, political agenda, and personal financial interests.
Watch Ranking Member Huffman discuss the report's findings.
“Donald Trump’s hijacking of America's 250th birthday will go down as one of the most corrupt, brazen abuses of public trust in presidential history, even by the dubious standards of this administration. As our country prepared to celebrate a milestone that belongs to every American, Trump and his operatives launched a hostile takeover of the bipartisan commission established by Congress to lead the celebration. When that failed, they sidelined the commission, siphoned its resources, and infiltrated a beloved national charity under cover of a shadow corporation that shielded them from public scrutiny. Then they proceeded to deceive donors, solicit foreign money, sell access to the President, award no-bid contracts to Trump loyalists, harvest Americans’ personal data, and push a white-washed, Christian nationalist version of history,” said Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif).
“But they didn’t account for us. Over the past year, our investigation has pursued the truth about the machinations, schemes and abuses of trust they’ve tried to hide. We’ve uncovered extensive evidence of corruption, self-enrichmentand potential crimes. The Republican majority in Congress, which has far more investigative tools and power than we do, could have joined us in conducting serious oversight and demanding answers. Instead, they’ve used their power to shield the individuals and entities involved.
“The American people deserve to know the truth about how the official national celebration of our country’s 250th anniversary was stolen, along with a large – and so far unaccounted for – sum of their taxpayer dollars. So, today – against the obstruction and resistance of our Republican colleagues – we are dragging this fiasco out of the shadows and shining a bright light on the corruption and fraud surrounding Freedom 250. We can’t stop from tarnishing the country’s July 4th celebration, but we can stop it from ever happening again – we can protect the next government program, the next fund, the next thing that's supposed to work for all of us, from being exploited and misused this way. That’s why we must confront this grift and corruption now. From our earliest days, America has stood for government by the people, not powerful tyrants. We will fight to keep it that way.”
When the nonpartisan, congressionally chartered America250 Commission refused to bend to the President's demands, the White House built a replacement - Freedom 250 LLC – and declared it the central platform for the national celebration. The White House lodged this shadow organization inside the National Park Foundation so it could exploit the credibility and donor relationships of a beloved public charity while operating outside the transparency rules Congress wrote into law for the commission.
Key Findings
- The President put himself at the center of the nation's birthday. Trump issued an executive order making himself and the Vice President Chair and Vice Chair of a White House task force, then staged his own birthday as a national event twice: the Army's 250th military parade on June 14, 2025, and a UFC fight on the White House South Lawn on June 14, 2026, run under the Freedom 250 banner.
- The White House built Freedom 250 on deceit. Musical performers, among others, were misled about programming and connections to Trump’s political machine. Fundraisers may have misled donors who intended to support America250 and handed them Freedom 250's banking information, routing contributions meant for the nonpartisan foundation to the President's substitute entity instead. The report finds that, if true, this could constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud under federal and District of Columbia law.
- Freedom 250 sold access to the President and courted foreign money in America's name. The organization circulated sponsorship packages starting at $500,000 and climbing above $10 million, backed by a "historic photo opportunity" with President Trump. Its CEO solicited foreign governments, corporations, and individuals at the World Economic Forum in Davos to fund the President’s priorities. If foreign funds reach the President's vanity projects, the report finds the conduct would clearly violate the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause.
- Trump and his operatives cashed in. Event Strategies, Inc., the firm that helped plan the January 6th rally, has collected tens of millions in federal contracts connected to the anniversary, including a master contract worth up to $100 million. Trump traded in the stock of companies that donated to Freedom 250 and staged a White House UFC fight that shamelessly promoted his own investments and business ventures. Freedom 250's event registration process was run through Campaign Nucleus, the firm founded by Trump campaign operative Brad Parscale, which uses artificial intelligence to score visitors and target "persuadable" voters. Thousands of unwitting fans handed over their personal information at a free FIFA World Cup Fan Zone on the National Mall. Freedom 250’s official merchandise is sold by the Trump campaign’s official merchandise vendor, Ace Specialties, and agencies have purchased the merchandise and required employees to wear it.
- The White House imposed a false, Christian nationalist history. Federally funded "Freedom Trucks" carried revisionism and outright falsehoods to schoolchildren, including an AI rendering of George Washington claiming, "our rights are a gift from God," a statement Washington is not documented to have made. The Interior Department also urged employees to wear Freedom 250 pins and threatened discipline against those who refused the pin, which anonymous employees took to calling their "Vichy pin," a reference to World War II-era lapel pins that served as loyalty and propaganda badges.
- Freedom 250 created a blueprint for corruption. The report concludes Freedom 250 is "a blueprint, not a one-time abuse," already test-driven at the Department of Agriculture, where the administration steered companies with business before the government to donate through a conservation charity into a fund the Secretary controls.
The investigation drew on confidential disclosures from sources interviewed by Committee Democrats, internal Freedom 250 documents and talking points obtained by the Committee, sworn testimony from two Committee hearings, and written responses from the National Park Foundation and the National Forest Foundation.
Republicans on the Committee refused to conduct any oversight to hold the administration accountable, even when Democrats repeatedly raised evidence of wrongdoing at Republicans’ own hearing entitled, “All in for America250: Public-Private Partnerships Supporting America’s Semiquincentennial on our Public Lands.” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum testified he was "not aware of the final decisionmaker" behind Freedom 250, and the Department has refused to provide that information since.
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REF 3 GUK
Trump hijacked US’s 250 anniversary to serve ‘political ideology and pet projects’, congressional report says
This article is more than 1 month old
House Democratic subcommittee report outlines web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes
David Smith in Washington
Thu 2 Jul 2026
Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday.
The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF).
The document was produced by Democratic staff of the House of Representatives’ natural resources committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. It has not been officially adopted by the committee.
‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump’s campaign to erase US history from national parks
“Under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment,” it states, contending that the machinery built for a national commemoration was converted “into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President’s ego, political ideology, and pet projects”.
3:00
How Trump is making the US’s 250th anniversary about himself – video
In 2016 Congress established the US semiquincentennial commission, operating as the non-profit America250 Foundation, to plan the nation’s 2026 celebrations on a non-partisan basis. However, under Trump, the White House launched a sustained pressure campaign to subsume the commission.
When America250 leadership resisted its demands to shift focus toward partisan, campaign-style spectacles, the Trump administration created Freedom 250 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the congressionally chartered NPF.
The interim report finds that, by taking control of the NPF board and installing key campaign operatives such as Meredith O’Rourke and Chris LaCivita, the White House secured an opaque vehicle that enjoyed the NPF’s non-partisan credibility and tax-exempt status while operating outside standard government transparency laws.
Jared Huffman, a California congressman who is the top Democrat on the natural resources committee, said: “I can’t, in my time here in Congress, remember anything even remotely like this: watching this trusted, venerable charity organisation, the National Parks Foundation, literally be hijacked for a craven political agenda that tries to steal the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and turn it into something that’s all about Trump, advancing this very divisive agenda and even enriching Trump and those around him.”
The interim report alleges that Freedom 250 surreptitiously diverted resources intended for America250 for its own benefit, leaving America250 scrambling for funds.
Sources interviewed by Democrats on the committee said fundraisers including O’Rourke misled prospective America250 donors by providing them with Freedom 250’s banking and routing numbers instead. The report finds this could constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud under federal and District of Columbia law.
This deceit extended to the entertainment industry. Artists recruited for the kickoff of the Great American State Fair – including Martina McBride and Young MC – were assured the event was non-partisan, only to face social media backlash when the event was revealed to be a Trump-backed rally. In the words of Young MC, the booking was a “bait and switch”.
The investigation also outlines how Freedom 250 effectively put a price tag on presidential access, circulating sponsorship packages starting at $500,000 and climbing above $10m for tiered recognition, culminating in a “historic photo opportunity” with Trump.
The report also points to perhaps the most clear example on 14 June when the White House hosted a huge Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event on the South Lawn to celebrate the president’s 80th birthday. The event was heavily sponsored by corporations facing impending federal regulation and used vast government resources for “Super Bowl-level security” marshalled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Fighters received bonuses in “USD1”, a cryptocurrency issued by World Liberty Financial, a trust run by the president’s children, and Trump personally bought up to $50,000 in stock in the UFC’s parent company weeks before the event.
Freedom 250 has also functioned as a conduit for steering federal funds to Trump campaign loyalists. Event Strategies – the same firm that planned the January 6 rally that preceded the US Capitol attack – was awarded 18 federal contracts totalling roughly $40m, along with an indefinite delivery master contract worth up to $100m.
Beyond lucrative contracts, the administration is accused of building a partisan political database disguised as a government domain. Freedom 250’s website, initially managed by former “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) employees known for past data leaks, extensively logs user data.
Event registration is powered by Campaign Nucleus, a firm founded by Brad Parscale, a veteran of Trump election campaigns. Campaign Nucleus openly boasts about using artificial intelligence to analyse personal data and target “persuadable” voters. Unsuspecting visitors, such as attenders of a free Fifa World Cup Fan Zone on the National Mall, unwittingly fed their personal information directly into this Republican campaign apparatus.
The report also focuses on the ideological overhaul of the semiquincentennial. Freedom 250 replaced America250’s civic engagement focus with overt Christian nationalist programming, operating in tandem with the Religious Liberty Commission, which recently recommended repealing the Johnson amendment to allow churches to engage in partisan politics.
A central feature of this effort was “Freedom Trucks” – a federally funded fleet of mobile museums dispatched to schoolchildren across the nation. Supplied with content from the conservative PragerU [the Prager University Foundation] and Hillsdale College, these exhibits recast the founding of the US as an exclusively Christian project, embracing demonstrable falsehoods.
Exhibits include an AI-generated George Washington claiming that “our rights are a gift from God”, a statement the first president is not documented as having made, alongside antisemitic tropes suggesting that Jewish merchants financed the revolutionary cause while omitting they also fought and died for it.
Concurrently, the administration aggressively moved to erase historical realities, removing national park signage detailing slavery, forced removal of Indigenous peoples and climate change. Huffman said it amounted to an attempt to reshape American identity to fit a narrow rightwing agenda.
“It’s a fantasy that airbrushes out the more complicated parts of our history – slavery, the Native American genocide, the actual secular ideals on which our government was founded. It wasn’t the opening of the clouds and some revealed covenant with God as they would have you believe.”
As Washington barrels towards Fourth of July, with another Trump speech and a big fireworks display planned for the national mall, Huffman acknowledges that Freedom 250 is unstoppable. But his goal now is exposure.
“The one thing we can do is make sure the American people know what they’re doing in our name and with our tax dollars,” the congressman said. “We should do that because what they have pulled off here is a potential template for other betrayals of public trust that they and maybe future generations will attempt if we don’t challenge them.”
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